Assyouti Productions
Cairo (EGY)
Role(s):
Associate/Staff
Assyouti Productions
Find More Startups
Startup
Location:
Cairo
Industry:
Entertainment
Year Founded:
2015
Number Employees:
50-100 people
Business Stage:
Growth (profitable)
Entity Type:
Incorporated Outside United States
Description:
The premise of Assyouti Productions is that the Egyptian artistic scene does not lack the passion, talent and skill to produce high standard feature films. We work mostly with very limited resources, sometimes on shoe-string budgets, but still insist on high quality results. For instance, to be able to finance and film the 11 days already edited, it took us about 3 years. These involved at least 9 months of rehearsals and pre-production preparations. When mainstream technicians — e.g. cameraman, gaffer, head machinist, etc — saw our work process in the first three phases, they offered to work at reduced rates or with deferred pay the next phase, because they became curious about the potential results our kind of passion and energy promise.
Although the company’s financial investment in this debut project is relatively high, yet the time and effort invested are priceless. We are more keen on safeguarding the artistic integrity of our project, financial profit is a secondary matter on our debut project. This is a different logic than the one dominant in the industry: we are
quality-driven, not profit-driven. We are sure that persisting to ensure the quality of our production will eventually pay off somehow.
The name of the company is derived from my family name, which belongs to an ancient capital of the south: Asyut. Although geographically at the centre of Egypt, this city’s once rich and diverse culture, with its religious and ethnic tolerance, became today a breeding ground of extremism and intolerance. The south generally is not only economically neglected, but also misrepresented and stereotyped in mainstream media. Assyouti Productions seeks to bring a voice to the marginalised, misrepresented and underrepresented corners of Egypt. The actor who sings Al-Sira Al-Hilaliya (the classical oral poem of Upper Egypt) in the film is born and raised in
the south of Egypt, where this poem is still sung. The lead actor (who plays adult Friday) is half-Syrian, half-Egyptian, and he spent half his life in Syria, and the other half in Damietta.